Chase INK Cards Minimum Spend To Change

2 Days In The Sky Comes To An End

Namaste from Bombay! Only 48 Hours after leaving Chicago, I finally made it to Bombay. All in all the entire experience was awesome and I have already begun the Trip Report for it. There is so much content that the Trip Report is basically going to need its own 8 Part HBO Mini Series to give it justice.

Also as I write this post from India, I’m fairly certain I have inadvertently outsourced my own job. This is great because I can now pay myself less to do the same job!

Internet Access is somewhat sporadic in India, so I am not going to be able to post every day. I am also going on a tour of Rajasthan later in the week and I have no idea what the internet situation will be there. My current plan is type out posts in Microsoft Word and then upload them whenever I can find a internet connection.

Chase INK Cards Minimum Spend Changing

For some reason or the other, Chase is going to change the Minimum Spend Requirements on the Chase INK Bold and INK Plus Cards back up to the original $10,000 in 3 months from the current $5,000 in 3 months!

The date is not set in stone yet, but from what I have heard, it will be sometime after December 31st, 2012.

Normally the Company that manages all the affiliate links never gives any advance notice on the exact date of these changes, so if you have thought about getting an INK Card, now would be the time.

Out of all the Cards that earn Ultimate Rewards, the Chase INK Plus and Chase INK Bold currently both offer the highest Sign On Bonus of 50,000 Ultimate Rewards Points after spending $5,000 in 3 months.

Ultimate Rewards are some of the most valuable “frequent flyer currency” out there and can be transferred to United, British Airways (for use on AA), Southwest, Hyatt, Priority Club, Marriott, etc.

Although the $5,000 MSR is high, it is certainly way better than the usual $10,000!

Also for the average family, when you factor in all monthly expenses including food, mortgage, clothes, car insurance, gas, etc, I think most families easily spend around $5,000 over 3 months. The trick is getting all those expenses charged onto your Credit Card.

The Double Play

To anyone that has a future trip planned out in their mind but doesn’t know how to achieve it, the number 1 suggestion I can give is to get both a Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase INK Card.

The reason you can do this is because the Chase Sapphire Preferred is a Personal Card, while the Chase INK Cards are Business Cards.

Even if you don’t have a “traditional” business, you can still apply for a Chase Business Card as a Sole Proprietor. It is extremely easy, you don’t have to file any additional forms or taxes, and you can even use your personal Social Security Number. You can find the step by step tutorial here.

Just this past weekend, I helped my Friend sign up for the Hyatt Card and the Chase INK Plus. Although my Friend has a real job and doesn’t own a “traditional” business, he is a Chicago Bulls season ticket holder and occasionally re-sells his tickets. In an “attempt to keep the transactions separate” for his “business” of re-selling tickets, he applied for the Chase Ink Plus and was approved!

Signing up for both the Chase Sapphire Preferred and a Chase INK Card can really be an enormous windfall.

With 98,000 Ultimate Rewards Points you can transfer them to United and get 1 Free Economy ticket anywhere in the World or 4 free US Domestic Economy tickets.

If you earn another 2,000 UR Points, you would have 100,000 Ultimate Rewards which would get you 1 Free Business Class ticket to Europe which normally costs close to $6,000.

Additionally, if you have enough Airline Miles and don’t need anymore, 98,000 Ultimate Rewards can be transferred to Hyatt and would be good for 4 FREE nights at any top Hyatt properties including the Park Hyatt Paris Vendome which starts around $1,000 a night…

How To Complete The MSR

For anyone that follows FFU, you are aware last month I did my first App-O-Rama and racked up around 420,000 Miles & Points via 8 Credit Card Sign Ups. However to get all those Miles & Points, I needed to spend around $14,000 in 3 months.

Obviously, I don’t have $14,000 in actual expenses over 3 months, so I had to get creative.

Amazon Payments

Amazon Payments is my go to for this kind of stuff. It basically allows you to move $1,000 a month from your Credit Card to someone else FOR FREE. So at a minimum, over 3 months, you can “spend” $3,000 for free. If you are crafty and set your family members up with Amazon Payment accounts, you can easily do $3,000 – $4,000 a month for free!

If you can’t set your Family Members up, then the next best thing is to use Bluebird and Vanilla Reload Cards. Although the awesome 5x via Office Depot is long dead, you can still buy the Vanilla Reload Cards at CVS without issue (for the time being).

Bluebird / Vanilla Reload

Before I left for India, I went into my local CVS and bought $4,000 worth of Vanilla Reload Cards across 4 different Credit Cards.

Once I got home, I simply loaded the Vanilla Reload Cards onto my Bluebird and had Bluebird mail the Credit Card companies a check. There is a $3.95 fee per $500 Vanilla Reload Card, but in my eyes, that is a steal!

Putting It All Together

Say you got both the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Chase INK Plus, you would have to spend $8,000 in 3 months to get the full 90,000 Ultimate Rewards Points.

Well using only 1 Amazon Payment account, you can “spend” $3,000 in 3 months for free.

For the remaining $5,000, you could easily buy $5,000 in Vanilla Reload Cards for around $40 in fees.

For those $40 in fees, you would reach the $8,000 Minimum Spend Requirement to earn the full 98,000 Ultimate Rewards Points (including the MSR).

$40 in fees for 98,000 Ultimate Rewards which can get you a free $6,000 Business Class flight to Europe, is not a bad deal!

Recap

If you have been thinking about getting a Chase INK Card, now would be the time before the Minimum Spend Requirement goes back up to $10,000.

Although the current $5,000 is high, using Amazon Payments and Vanilla Reload Cards, you can easily hit the Minimum Spend Requirement without much effort.

I think once I get back form India, I am going to get the Chase INK Plus (already have the Bold) and Hyatt Card.

I have depleted my Ultimate Rewards reserves, so I will gladly “spend” $5,000 to fill it back up with 55,000 Ultimate Rewards Points. I will probably go to Europe in the Summer, so at minimum, I can use those UR Points for a free Economy Trip to Europe!